About the Client

Being Digital Leads to Real, Financial Results 

Delivering financial value is the reason why Fortune 100 companies turn to this digital consulting firm when they’re ready to transform their business. Its success is based on creating industry-led multidisciplinary teams that combine traditional management consulting, design, strategy, technology, and digital product engineering to drive quantifiable financial results for clients. 

The Situation

Setting the Sales Team Up for Success

How a company implements a digital vision can often lead to a positive or negative effect on the bottom line. Having a digital-first mindset is one thing, but executing that vision is an entirely different story. 

Companies believe being digital is getting from point A to point B. But undertaking a digital transformation initiative is not a linear journey. Instead, lasting digital change only happens when companies are nimble, agile, and willing to evolve. 

Many companies will fail trying to implement a digital transformation. A staggering 70% of companies who try fail. And it’s a pain point that this digital consulting firm knows well.

As demand for digital transformation (DX) efforts accelerated during the pandemic, the firm wanted to capitalize on the demand and position itself as the go-to resource for prospective clients. To do so, it wanted to create a series of sales enablement materials that could clearly show prospective clients the financial value of its services.  

Yet, there was a problem. The digital consulting firm had capacity constraints. And given the expedited nature of the initiative, they needed someone fast that could get started developing the sales enablement materials, including the financial models that tell the story of how its offerings make financial sense on the road to transformation.

Instead of onboarding a full-time employee, the firm realized its best bet was to explore an alternative route: on-demand talent. 

The Solution

Finding A Digitally Savvy Business Transformation Expert 

The digital consulting firm was looking for specialized expertise for its sales project. It needed a self-starter with a strong financial background and a demonstrated track record guiding successful value-driven business transformations. 

It reached out to Graphite to find an expert due to the platform’s deep bench of talent, which included former MBB, Big Four, and Fortune 500 employees. By word-of-mouth reputation, it knew that an expert from Graphite could not only deliver the results but also be a self-starter navigating ambiguity to drive clear, polished deliverables. 

Within 24 hours of posting the role, the Graphite Account Executive (AE) returned to the client with a hand-selected group of three candidates. The digital consulting firm then used Graphite’s in-app messaging feature to communicate with each candidate before selecting a digitally savvy business transformation expert with over 25 years of experience. 

The selected expert had a strong track record of guiding successful value-driven business transformations for clients, including Apple, BP, HP, Siemens, and Aetna. 

They served as the founder and managing director of two companies, offering customer value innovation and management. Their depth of experience in transformative change led them to create a customer value strategy consultancy and a pioneering business-to-business (B2B) value management software firm for clients across the Americas, Asia, Australia, and Europe. 

The Result

Quantifying the Value of Business Transformation Leads to More Sales Wins 

To articulate the expected financial value that the digital consulting firm offers, the expert first met with internal industry and solution subject matter experts. They gathered the relevant information to inform the value models for their solutions in the technology, banking, and healthcare industries.

With a combination of listening and learning, the expert began to understand the business impact of the solutions as well as the KPIs of the industries. The expert leveraged their expertise in driving successful value-driven business transformations to create a financial model with accompanying analysis. 

The output was an Excel model for eight solutions, collaborating with subject matter experts (SMEs) and project stakeholders to refine the model. 

Due to the strong results demonstrated by the expert, the client extended the project to create additional financial models that tell the story of how digital transformation makes financial sense. 

The relationship between Graphite and the digital consulting firm was a fruitful one. At the project's onset, the AE met with the expert and client to set expectations, align on the frequency of check-ins, and how to issue and receive payments on the platform. Throughout the engagement, the AE maintained close contact with the client to ensure the project was successful every step of the way.

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